


ghosts of years past

by eek4444



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Enjoy!, M/M, just wrote this in a spare half hour between studying, my first non-crack f1 fic wow, v short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 20:37:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12872523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eek4444/pseuds/eek4444
Summary: Nico is back in the paddock. Lewis needs to think.





	ghosts of years past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softbottas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softbottas/gifts).



> A very short fic originally posted on my Tumblr (angelamerkelofficial)

“Valtteri?” 

Lewis was back in their shared motorhome, shrugging off his customary coat and flinging it on the sofa. It was a heavy coat, and he was sweating slightly in the heat, yet he couldn't possibly be seen around the paddock without it. It was essential to his brand. He made his way towards Valtteri’s half of the van, toeing off his shoes as he did so. Valtteri was sitting at the tiny table in his room, staring at his phone with his usual intensity. As Lewis entered, he looked up and smiled. Lewis flopped down on to Valtteri’s bed. 

“You know who’s here?” began Lewis with his eyes closed. He heard Valtteri’s sigh, and his eyes shot open again. 

“Everyone knows Nico is here, Lewis,” said Valtteri. “You told me he was coming ages ago.” 

“But I mean he’s actually here. I saw him arrive. Surrounded by press,” Lewis ground his teeth a bit before continuing. “Acting like he owns the place, not like he retired.” 

There was no reaction from the Finn, who simply put down his phone and stared out of the window. 

It burst out of Lewis suddenly. “He’s doing it to get my attention, I know it. He wants me to forgive him, go back to the way it was before. Well fuck that. The things he said last year, and since. Hell, the things I said! There’s no getting over that stuff, man!” 

Still no sound from Valtteri, who was looking at him now with an expression in his eyes that Lewis couldn't quite read. 

“Well?” asked Lewis. “What do I do, Val?” 

Valtteri looked at him levelly. “Do you want to go back go the way things were before?” he questioned. 

Lewis huffed out a long breath and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know. Do I wish we were still kids riding go-karts? No. But do I wish we were still… friends? Yeah.” 

Friends? Was that really all they had been? Nico had been more than that, surely, all those years ago. Nico had been his world when they'd been young and stupid, trashing hotel rooms and getting blind drunk, diving in the dark in the lake at Nico’s family home, racing their hot-hatches in the backstreets of European cities he couldn't even remember any more. His first car. Hadn't they christened it by driving from home all the way through France to Monaco overnight to try their luck at the casios? They'd been picked up by Nico’s dad the next day, and been escorted home, bleary-eyed and ashamed, but happy. 

Happy. And yet he wasn’t unhappy now. He was just different. He’d changed, Nico had changed. They weren’t love-struck teenagers any more, they weren’t even hungry young men desperate to prove themselves. Nico had found stability in family life, while Lewis had found stability in racing. He was born to race; he’d known that from the first time his dad had plonked him behind the wheel of a crappy kart, pointed him in the direction of the finish and said “Go.” 

But Lewis was happy out of the car as well, these days. Valtteri offered him a stability he would never have imagined having two years ago, when his relationship with Nico was being torn apart, both by the media and themselves, and his relationships with other people were breaking down as well. It had felt like the end of the world when after a year of fighting, which seemed at times like a never-ending nightmare, Nico had retired. Lewis had been exhausted, half happy it was all over, half sad that Nico was finally making his choice and leaving him behind. 

But he had refocused, cleared his mind, burnt all his photos of him and Nico while a few tears rolled down his cheeks. March had rolled around, and he was back where he belonged. And this time he wasn’t fighting himself over whether losing Nico was a price worth paying for a championship; Nico was gone, and Lewis found himself surprisingly willing to forget. 

Of course, it made it easier to move on with Valtteri next to him; calm, patient, kind Valtteri, with his shy smile which covered up a sharp sense of humour. Valtteri, who would blush furiously whenever he was complimented, and even more furiously when Lewis kissed him when there was even the tiniest chance they could be seen by someone. Valtteri, with his strong hands soothing the stress out of Lewis’s shoulders. 

Valtteri had moved to Lewis and settled next to him, his fingers gently soothing over Lewis’s shoulders, pulling him into his chest. 

Lewis was the one blushing now, as he curled into Valtteri, feeling like a baby or a cat. Valtteri. How did he always know how Lewis was feeling, and what he needed?

“This ‘s gay,” he mumbled into Valtteri’s chest. Valtteri’s fingers stilled on his back until Lewis nudged the Finn’s chin with his nose. “I love you, man.”

Valtteri laughed into his hair. “You alright?” he asked, and Lewis understood the question. 

“I’m not going to talk to him,” he said. “Not yet.”

And, he realised, if he never reconciled with Nico, well, maybe it wouldn't matter. The past was in the past, and the future? The future had blue-grey eyes and the number 77 on his car.


End file.
